Counterfeit drugs in circulation, says NAFDAC

he production and circulation of counterfeit drugs in the country is on decline, National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Director-General, Dr Paul Orhii has said.
He spoke at a meeting with Inspectors and Registrars of Medicines from seven West African countries in Abuja.
According to him, the prevalence of fake drugs, which was as high as 40 percent of medicines in circulation in 2001, has dropped to 6.4 per cent.
He said: “According to studies conducted by NAFDAC from 2001 to 2012, there is a positive trend which shows a progressive decrease in counterfeit medicines in Nigeria.
“The studies which were in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that in 2001, counterfeit stood at 40 percent as against 16.7 per cent in 2005.
“National Survey on Quality of Medicines using Truscan showed that counterfeits stood at 6.4 per cent in 2012.”
He said anti-malaria medicines are the most affected as about 19.6 percent of the medicines in circulation in Nigeria have been found to be counterfeits.
“We took 910 samples of anti malaria medicines for the National Survey on Quality of Medicines. 732 of these samples passed, while 178 of the samples failed. The percentage of the anti malaria samples that passed was 80. 4, while the failure was 19.6 percent,” He stated.
He stressed that the general low percentage recorded now is being threatened by renewed upsurge in the importation of counterfeit medicines into the country by drug barons.
To really put a stop to the illicit business in Nigeria, he said that the Agency is pushing for review of its law to give life imprisonment for anybody found guilty of importing or producing fake medicines in Nigeria.
Nigeria, he said, would soon sign a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government to outlaw the importation of fake drugs from China to Nigeria.